This contribution analyses the role played by translation in the emergence of the Italian transfeminist collective Onna Pas. The collective was born in 2019 after a series of workshops centred on the reading and translation of Wittig’s and Zeig’s work (
1975). This contribution examines the formation of Onna Pas using the concept of affective performativity. Drawing on sociological theories of affect (
Gregg and Seighworth 2010;
Ahmed 2004) applied to translation (
Koskinen 2020), according to which affect is a force arising in the “in-betweenness” of encounters (
Gregg and Seigworth 2010, 2), I understand translation as both an affective practice that brings about “intense” joyful and playful encounters, and as a performative one capable of producing other translations, performances, objects, collectivities and alliances. I particularly explore the unpredictable outcome of translational encounters, contrary to studies of translation and activism (
Baker 2013), which tend to stress the notion of conscious positionalities.